THE FARMER AT HOME. 143 



The art of hatching chickens by means of ovens has long been 

 ] :actised in Egypt, chiefly in a village named Berrne, and its envi- 

 r >ns. About the beginning of autumn, the natives scatter themselves 

 a 1 over the country ; where each undertakes the management of an 

 c 7en. These ovens are of different sizes, but in general they contain 

 f om 40,000 to 80,000 eggs, and they usually keep them working for 

 i bout six months ; as, therefore, each brood takes up in an oven, as 

 t nder a hen, only twenty-one days, it is easy in every one of them to 

 latch eight different broods of chickens. Every Bermean is under 

 1 he obligation of delivering to the person furnishing him with eggs, 

 (nly two-thirds of as many chickens as there have been eggs put 

 under his care ; and he is a gainer by this bargain, as more than two- 

 1 hirds of the eggs usually produce chickens. This useful and advan- 

 lageous method of hatching eggs was discovered in France by the 

 ingenious M. Reamur ; who, by a number of experiments, reduced 

 lie art to fixed principles. 



ELECTRICITY. The surface of the earth, and of all the bodies 

 with which we are acquainted, is supposed to contain or possess a 

 power of exciting or exhibiting a certain quantity of an exceedingly 

 subtile agent, called the electric fluid or power. The quantity 

 usually belonging to any surface, is called its natural share, and then 

 it produces no sensible effects ; but when any surface becomes pos- 

 sessed of more, or of less, than its natural quantity, it is electrified, 

 and it then exhibits a variety of peculiar and surprising phenomena 

 ascribed to the power called electric. If you take a stick of sealing- 

 wax and rub it on the sleeve of your coat, it will have the power of 

 attracting small pieces of paper, or other light substances, when held 

 near them. If a clean and dry glass tube be briskly rubbed with 

 the hand, or with a piece of flannel, and then presented to any small 

 light substances, it will immediately attract and repel them alter- 

 nately for a considerable time. The tube is then said to be excited. 

 If an excited glass tube, in a dark room, be brought within about 

 half an inch of the finger, a lucid spark will be seen between the 

 finger and the tube, accompanied with a snapping noise, and a 

 peculiar sensation of the finger. Dry flannel clothes, when handled 

 in. the dark, frequently exhibit a sparkling appearance, attended with 

 the same kind of noise that is heard in the experiment of the glass 

 tube. 



All those bodies which transmit or conduct electricity from one 

 surface to another, are called conductors, and those surfaces that will 

 not transmit the electric power, are called electrics or non-conductors. 

 The general class of conductors comprehends metals, ores, and fluids 

 in their natural state, except air and oils.. Vitrified and resinous sub- 

 stances, amber, sulphur, wax, silk, cotton, and featiiers, are electrics 

 vr non-conductors. Many of these, such as glass, resin, and air, 

 become conductors by being heated. When a surface is supposed to 



